LIVE REVIEW

Randy Newman

3 stars (out of 4)

When: Thursday, August 08, 2013

Highlight: Newman didn’t shy away from political incorrectness, for comedy’s sake. For “I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It),” Newman coached the crowd to be backup singers, repeating the refrain, “He’s dead, he’s dead.” During a practice run, the audience’s enthusiastic singing prompted him to say, “Really give it to me, like the Hitler Youth.” The interactive call-and-response made for the evening’s most energetic number.

Set length: 105 minutes, not counting a 25-minute break

Attendance: 943

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Few can couple a happy-sounding song with an acerbic lyric like Randy Newman.

The Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer and songwriter kicked off his show at Frederik Meijer Gardens Thursday night with “It’s Money That I Love,” a perfect representation of his particular tonal dynamic. Its opening lines are “I don’t love mountains, I don’t love the sea, I don’t love Jesus, he never done a thing for me,” accompanied by his signature rollicking, jazzy, major-key piano. He followed the number with a bone-dry quip: “I like to start with a spiritual.”

That set the tone for the 105-minute, 34-song show, which Newman peppered with sharply pointed comedy, to match the lyrics of his most entertaining songs. For “I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It)” – a bitterly funny (or maybe just bitter) missive about artists performing past their prime – he coached the crowd to sing backup vocals by saying, “Really give it to me, like the Hitler Youth.” (Perhaps it’s worth noting that Newman is of Jewish descent.) During the song, he shouted “Guitar solo!” during the bridge, as if giving the audience a lesson in songwriting. Which would be appropriate, considering his lengthy and lucrative career penning tunes for movies, or other artists who, he didn’t hesitate to point out, had bigger hits with his songs than he did.

His comedy veered from biting self-deprecation to exaggerated egotism. Introducing “You’ve Got a Friend In Me,” the signature song of “Toy Story,” the classic animated movie he scored, he gave the most ridiculous, egregiously self-centered synopsis of the film, saying Disney executives didn’t listen to him, and that there are parts of it he didn’t watch because “there was no music in it.”

Newman induced enough laughter that, if you didn’t know any better, you’d expect him to puncture the sincerity of his heartbreak songs “Marie,” “Losing You” and “I Miss You” with a punchline. His earnest moments showed he’s not just about sarcastic detachment, although his diversity was more effectively explored with sobering, haunting murder ballad “In Germany Before the War,” and “Love Story,” whose lighthearted sentiment turns dark upon the realization that the song ends when the its subjects “pass away.”

The hit “Short People” – with the immortal lyric, “Short people got no reason to live” – and “Political Science” were terrific, crowd-pleasing excursions into acidic satire, set to bouncy rhythms and sung with Newman’s big, warm, round voice. Similarly, his re-telling of Western imperialism, “The Great Nations of Europe,” gets your toe tapping to its upbeat tone before you notice it’s essentially a song about genocide. Newman can be sneaky that way.

Assembling his set seemingly off the cuff, Newman performed career touchstones “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” “I Love L.A.” and “Sail Away.” His signature slurred, affected vocal delivery was in good form, and his piano had a loose, drunken quality to it that sometimes felt improvisational, maybe even a little dangerous, just like his most inspired lyrical moments. Although many in the audience seemed to love the direct, unashamedly sentimental qualities of “Lonely at the Top” and set-closer “Just Like Home,” there was more substance in his amusingly sour witticisms, and more depth in his darkness.

John Serba is film critic and entertainment reporter for MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at jserba@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.